1956

Even the air is different in Hollywood. Drier, thicker, dirtier, despite the bright spring sky. It is also rich with the scent of Colonel Parker’s cigars. Elvis breathes in a lungful, and starts to cough as his manager steers him towards his screen test at Paramount Pictures. He often smells the Colonel before he sees him. The sweet, woody scent precedes him, and when Elvis gets a whiff of it, he knows he’s got to look sharp.

‘You’re gonna be terrific,’ the Colonel says. ‘All Mr Wallis will want to know is that you can take direction without any bullshit. What he won’t want is some hotshot who thinks he knows it all already. So you gotta show him you’re real good at listening. You can do that, can’t you?’

‘I reckon so, sir.’

‘I know you can, son. Like I always say: you do your thing, I do mine.’

Every building is squared off, and the same light cream colour. The dry atmosphere means his hair stays in its sculpted shape. There is a new tightness around his mouth and eyes, but he cannot tell if this is down to the Los Angeles air, or all the smiling he’s doing. Maybe it’s just nerves at the thought of acting for real Hollywood folks, or exhaustion from being on the road. When he collapsed a few weeks ago after a show in Florida, the doctor told him he had to rest up or risk serious illness, because what he was doing onstage amounted to a full day’s labour crammed into twenty minutes. Ever since, Elvis has been proudly telling everyone that story, and every time he tells it, the Colonel’s eyes grow rounder and brighter, like prized marbles.

A young man wearing pale pants strides past with a clipboard beneath his arm and the Colonel raises his hand in crisp salute. ‘Fine morning!’ he says.

The man shoots an interested look at Elvis, nods, and walks on.

Colonel Parker leans close to Elvis and hisses, ‘Don’t mix with these Hollywood guys any more than you got to. They’re all Jews and faggots. Which is their business, of course. But you need to keep your wits sharp.’

Elvis nods.

‘I’m watching your back, but you gotta do your bit, too.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘So why you wearing blue jeans, son?’ asks the Colonel, looking straight ahead, his short body waddling confidently.

‘I figured it’d be more … actorly.’

‘Like James Dean?’

‘I guess. Colonel, do you reckon they’d let me do that speech from Rebel Without a Cause?’ Elvis knows all the words to his favourite film and often performs bits of it for his manager.

‘You know the one, don’t you?’ he continues. ‘The one about him feeling so ashamed? Like he don’t belong no place?’

They’ve reached the studio now, and the Colonel pauses to look directly at Elvis. Those round eyes make Elvis fear that his manager can read his mind. Elvis has seen the Colonel hypnotise men; once he had his assistant rolling on the floor and barking like a dog. He’s never sure if this is a trick or a real power. Certainly, there seems to be nothing his manager cannot do. When they’d first met, he’d told Elvis that he would never be more than a regional star without a bigger record label, and he’d made that happen. Then he’d got him on TV. And now here they are, in Hollywood.

‘You’re a smart boy,’ the Colonel says, cocking his head. ‘Mr Wallis will want somebody to replace Dean. And you’re his ticket to the youth market. But don’t forget he’ll want something new, too. He doesn’t want a number-two James Dean. He wants a number-one Elvis Presley. Wallis called me. He’s been calling me ever since he saw you on the Dorsey Show. He’s desperate for your talent, son.’

‘Yessir, but—’

‘You’re my boy, and you’re already a star. Got it?’

‘Thank you, Colonel.’

‘So do the script they sent you, OK?’

‘Yessir.’

‘And when I’ve got you a million-dollar contract – which I will – then you can do whatever the hell script you like.’

‘Yessir.’

The Colonel chews on his cigar and pats Elvis’s shoulder. ‘You could make money in your sleep, son. In fact, you are!’

Elvis laughs.

Holding the door open for him, the Colonel adds, round eyes popping, ‘And if you ever do anything to shame me, you’re finished.’

The following day, Elvis and his manager have an appointment to meet producer Hal Wallis. Mr Wallis’s office is as big as the whole studio at Sun Records, and his desk is an enormous marble table set on a raised platform, like an altar. There’s nothing on it except a black telephone, a pad and a gold pencil. Behind the desk is a shelf reserved for Academy Awards, and Elvis can’t help but imagine what it might be like to hold one of those glinting statuettes in his hands.

Catching him gawping, Mr Wallis says, ‘I see you’ve noticed the spoils of my art! So difficult to know where to put these things …’

He’s wearing powder-blue suit pants and a silk tie, and is deeply tanned. Leaning back in his padded chair, he smiles.

‘So, young man, what do you make of our little set-up here?’

‘I can hardly take it in, Mr Wallis,’ says Elvis, shifting in his seat. ‘I mean, it’s happened so fast and all.’

Mr Wallis nods thoughtfully. ‘I can imagine,’ he says in a soft voice, ‘that it’s quite overwhelming. Of course, the real strength of our system here at Paramount is that we look after our stars. It can be a pretty tough business, being famous. And we have plenty of experience in managing that process.’

‘Boy’s already a star in his own right, of course,’ says Colonel Parker, dabbing his brow with a brightly patterned handkerchief. ‘Do you know how many records he’s sold, Hal? Did I give you the update on that?’

‘I don’t believe you did, Tom.’

‘“Heartbreak Hotel” – that’s his latest, out just a few weeks – is already over a million, and still climbing.’

‘That is truly impressive.’

‘I’m fielding calls from the TV networks, night and day. Everyone wants my boy, Hal.’

Mr Wallis forms a steeple with his fingers and breathes across it.

‘I’ve watched your screen test, Elvis, and I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t seen any male actor whose test impressed me quite as much since Errol Flynn.’

Elvis beams. ‘Why, thank you, sir.’

‘It’s not so much your acting ability – although you do have that – it’s more your magnetism. The camera sees it, and magnifies it, and that’s the thing that makes stars. And, frustratingly for us, it’s the thing that’s absolutely impossible to manufacture.’

‘Millions of girls across the nation agree!’ says the Colonel, slapping Elvis’s shoulder. ‘And their mamas and grandmas, too!’

‘What did you make of the role you played in the test, Elvis?’ asks Mr Wallis.

Putting his hands to his knees to stop them jumping up and down, Elvis says, ‘Well, it was all real interesting, sir, and everyone was so helpful and all, and I had fun. But – can I speak honestly?’

‘Please.’

The Colonel sits forward, gripping his cigar in his teeth. He’s warned his client never to speak his mind without first checking that his mind is in full agreement with his manager’s. But Elvis can’t keep quiet on this, and he feels he can trust Mr Wallis to understand. Although he rates the Colonel as just about the smartest man he has ever met, Elvis suspects that his manager knows little about acting in real movies.

‘Well, that character just wasn’t anything like me, you know?’ he says. ‘I mean, he was kinda heartbroken, and real happy at the same time. When I get my heart broke, I’m just sad.’

He’d played a halfwit clown. The director hadn’t said as much, but from the moment Elvis first read the script he’d known he was playing somebody not unlike his cousin, Gene. Maybe listening to Gene babble on for so many years had helped him get into the role.

Mr Wallis raises his eyebrows. ‘What kind of role do you think would suit you, Elvis?’

‘I guess just something a bit more like me, more suited to my experience and all … something that didn’t need so much—’

‘Acting?’ asks Mr Wallis.

There’s a pause before he bursts out laughing, his plump cheeks shaking with mirth. After a beat, the Colonel joins in.

Elvis looks into his lap. Before the screen test, his manager told him a story about Hank Williams. Hank made it to Hollywood, the Colonel said, only to blow the whole damn thing by getting uppity when he thought the producer was treating him like a rube. Hank had pushed back his chair and rested his cowboy-booted feet on the producer’s desk. The sound of Hank’s spurs digging into that fine maple had marked the end of his career in pictures.

Elvis shakes his head and manages to smile up at the two men. ‘You got my number!’ he says, as lightly as he can.

Mr Wallis dabs his eyes. ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ he says. ‘The project I’m thinking of for you, Elvis, is what I’d call a classic Civil War picture, with plenty of love interest, and a real dramatic role for you. Do you think you could handle that?’

‘How many songs?’ asks the Colonel.

‘We can discuss that, but we’ll obviously be including some musical numbers … the character you’d play, Elvis, is a good farm boy, so that would in fact be closer to your own experience, am I right?’

‘Well, not exactly, sir—’

‘His daddy was a sharecropper,’ states the Colonel, without looking at Elvis. ‘Worked night and day. Real salt of the earth.’

‘So you’ll know what it’s like to toil the land,’ says Mr Wallis. ‘I bet you could chase a hog and catch it!’

Elvis looks at his shoes. They are made of crocodile skin, and too soft to make a dent in any item of furniture in this room.

‘Yessir,’ he says, ‘reckon I could, if it was a slow ’un.’

Mr Wallis chuckles. ‘Elvis,’ he says, ‘I think we’re going to get along just fine.’

A couple of nights later, he is mobbed by girls after a show at the San Diego Arena, and an entire arm of his jacket is taken from him. He runs to the Cadillac, trailing threads of cloth. Slamming the door shut, he sees naked legs coming from his dressing-room window, and a couple of state troopers, together with his friend Red, who has started coming to shows with him to help out, trying to stuff them back in, as though dealing with a bucket of snakes.

Collapsing in the back seat, Elvis realises the police have become part of his family. His first sight now, on arriving anyplace new, or stepping from a hotel or limousine, is a uniform, a cap and a pistol. Wherever he goes, Colonel Parker sees to it that a band of state troopers are put to work, holding back the crowds. Elvis has thanked his manager many times for saving his life. He tells the Colonel that he is like a father to him, and that he hopes he can prove a worthy son.

Back at the El Cortez Hotel, his mama and his new steady, Barbara, are waiting. Barbara is a friend of Dixie’s, although slightly older; from some angles, she looks like Elizabeth Taylor. She and Gladys sit at opposite ends of the vinyl couch in his suite, both clutching their purses in their laps. What Elvis finds both appealing and unsettling about Barbara is her cool watchfulness. She reads books and talks about them, too. Sometimes she even reads him poetry, which he likes. Elvis judges her sophisticated enough to be seen with him, yet homey enough to please his mama.

He and Dixie split a few months ago. Sitting on her porch, Dixie had wept as she told him they’d grown too far apart, and she had to end it. His life was elsewhere, now, and his success was more than she could handle. They’d cried together for hours. By midnight, though, he knew her tears were a way of keeping him there in the hope that he’d promise to turn down the dial on his career. The look of desperate pleading in her reddened eyes had made him relieved to walk away.

Outside, a crowd of a hundred or so girls are chanting his name and occasionally breaking out into squeals.

He leans in to kiss his visitors’ cheeks – Mama’s first.

Barbara says, ‘Sounds like that one was a success.’

‘It was crazy!’ Elvis says, pacing up and down before them. ‘The best yet, probably. They’re still real excited.’

She nods thoughtfully. Unlike Dixie, Barbara never bubbles over. He wonders what it would take to make her raise her voice. She still has her hat on, a tiny red velvet thing which puts him in mind of a jewellery box. He can’t fathom how it stays on her head; perhaps it’s held in place by Barbara’s will, alone.

‘Red said it was more than crazy, son,’ says Gladys. ‘He said things got a little scary.’

‘There was some girls, after, came into the dressing room uninvited, that’s all.’

Gladys shifts in her seat, dabbing at her hairline with a handkerchief. ‘Did you ask Mr Parker about getting more police protection? He promised me he’d take good care of you. Me and daddy would never have signed that contract if we’d known—’

‘He’s doing a good job, Mama. And it’s a miracle, ain’t it? Everyone wants me! Listen to them!’ Elvis gestures towards the window. In fact, the shouting has died down some.

‘Just so long as they don’t hurt you, son. Barbara here’s been worried, too.’

Barbara screws up her nose, but she’s smiling. ‘Those girls are kinda wild, Elvis. You’re driving them wild.’

‘I’m just entertaining them. I owe it to them to put on a good show.’

‘Do you have to do all that … that stuff, on the floor?’ Barbara asks.

‘What stuff?’

‘Elvis wouldn’t do anything unchristian,’ says Gladys.

‘Seems to me those girls need a little more self-control!’ says Barbara, glancing at Gladys.

Elvis snorts. ‘Control’s something you’re real good at, ain’t it?’

Barbara draws back. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, you might try getting off your behind to kiss me when I come in!’ He hoists her to her feet and plants a kiss on her neck.

Barbara touches her hat, apparently worried that it has moved.

‘Now, son, she’s just concerned for your safety,’ says Gladys, patting Barbara’s hand. ‘Why don’t you fetch us all a cool drink and maybe a sandwich from the lobby, Barbara, dear? Whoever’s down there won’t bother you … Elvis, give Barbara some money.’

‘I got it,’ says Barbara.

Elvis tries to stuff some bills in the pocket of Barbara’s dress as she walks to the door. His hands fumble at her waist, and she pushes them away.

‘I said, I got it.’

When she’s gone, Elvis collapses on the couch next to his mama.

‘That girl sure is sensitive,’ says Gladys. ‘You gotta be real careful with her.’

‘I can handle it, Mama,’ says Elvis.

‘Well, I’m glad she’s gone, because I got news.’ She takes his hand in hers, and lowers her voice. ‘There’s no way to tell you this but straight, son. Dixie’s fixing to marry.’

Elvis springs from the couch and in two steps he’s at the window, checking on the crowd outside. The noise increases.

‘Still around a hundred girls out there,’ he says.

‘You hear what I told you, son?’

He puts his hands to the window, then presses his cheek to the glass. In response, the girls wave their arms, straining upwards as though they could reach him, even from four floors below. It’s useless, of course; there is no ladder to where he is, but still they stretch as far as they can.

‘I’ll never understand why the two of you parted, but now she’s found a nice boy with a good steady job—’

‘Hi, girls!’ Elvis flings open the window and waves, and the crowd erupt into yelling. Several drivers blast their horns at the commotion. The cool air coming from the bay feels good on his face. He wonders what would happen if he were to fall. Would the crowd catch him, or would they devour him?

‘Elvis! Come away from there! You gonna get those girls in trouble.’

‘Sure mean to,’ he mumbles.

‘What did you say?’

‘I sure am happy for Dixie,’ he says, closing the window.

Gladys sighs. ‘You know, you didn’t oughta let Barbara go the same way. She’s a good girl.’

He crosses the room and kneels before his mother, resting his head on the couch. ‘Mama,’ he says, looking up at her, ‘I don’t need no wife. I got you.’

She smiles and pats his hair. ‘Quit messing around.’

‘Nobody’s gonna look after Elvie like you do.’

‘You gotta do right by that gal, or she’ll be gone. Be smart. If you keep Barbara happy, she’ll wait for you.’

He gets to his feet once more but doesn’t go to the window this time. At his back the sound of the girls chanting his name reverberates up into the air.

‘Mama,’ he says, ‘I got so many girls to keep happy, it makes my head spin.’

‘Son,’ says Gladys, ‘if anybody can do it, you can.’

Elvis stands at the window and throws it open to let the cold air and the sound of his fans surround him. He can smell the ocean. It’s close to midnight; his mama and Barbara have gone to their own beds and Red is in the suite’s bathroom. Leaning on the sill, he waves down to the girls still on the sidewalk – about fifty, he reckons. Their upturned faces are lit by the hotel sign, which flashes blue and green, giving them an unearthly glow. One of them shouts, ‘Take off your shirt, Elvis!’

Pretending not to have heard, he cups a hand to his ear. ‘Say what?’

‘Shirt off!’

He shakes his head. ‘Can’t hear you!’

‘Shirt off!’

Drawing back, he unbuttons his shirt – pale blue, embroidered with white diamonds – to the rising crescendo of squeals, then dangles it above the crowd with one hand.

‘Those crazy females will wake the whole city.’

Red has returned from the bathroom and is standing close to him, looking out. Earlier, it was obvious to Elvis that Red wanted to go out on the town with Scotty, Bill and DJ, the new drummer. But, knowing Elvis couldn’t join them, Red chose to stay and keep his friend company.

He lights up a cigarette and blows smoke out of the window.

‘Why you half-naked, E?’

‘Just having me a little fun,’ says Elvis, tossing the shirt into the air. It balloons out, then flutters down with its arms catching on the breeze. The girls rise as one to grab it. It gets hooked by at least four of them, who shriek as they try to tug it from each other.

Red looks down. ‘Those gals gonna kill each other,’ he murmurs.

Elvis turns to him and says, ‘Feel like doing something for me?’

‘Sure, E.’

‘Go down there and pick me one out. You know the type I like.’

Red looks as though he’s about to laugh, but Elvis holds his gaze.

‘There’s one I seen. Around sixteen. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Kinda small, with a round behind. Bring her up.’

‘How will I know which—’

‘You’ll know,’ says Elvis. He’s seen no such girl in the crowd, but he can imagine her well enough, and he knows Red can, too.

Red drags on his cigarette. ‘All right,’ he says, ‘but what if there’s more than one like that?’

‘Hell, bring ’em both up,’ says Elvis.

‘And what if there’s three, E?’

Elvis laughs. ‘Then there’s one for you, too, man.’

As Red leaves the room, Elvis adds, ‘Don’t tell Colonel nothing about this.’

The girl’s name is Diane. In her pink dress and matching lipstick, she is almost exactly what he’d asked for, and she hasn’t said a word since Red brought her up with her friend, Alicia. They both sit on the couch drinking Pepsis while Red and Elvis swap wisecracks. Both girls laugh at everything Elvis says, but Alicia laughs the loudest. When Red takes Alicia off to his room, Elvis suggests that Diane might like to see where he sleeps.

She removes her shoes and sits on the edge of the mattress, studying her bare feet. Her toenails are painted light green, and each one is perfectly shaped and glossy.

‘I like your toes, honey,’ he says. ‘I can tell you’ve gone to a heap of trouble, there.’

She wiggles them for him.

‘Why don’t you go wash them?’ he suggests.

She frowns, but takes herself off to the bathroom. While she’s gone, Elvis fetches a pair of ladies’ cream silk shortie pyjamas from his suitcase and places them on the bed. He swallows down a couple of sleeping pills from the bottle he stashed in the drawer earlier. Then he strips to his undershorts and climbs between the sheets. He arranges the covers over his lower half and sits upright, watching the door.

When it opens, Diane catches her breath and stands completely still, unable to look at his face.

‘It’s OK, honey,’ he says, ‘I just want to snuggle. Slip on those pyjamas for me, and come over here.’

She puts a hand to her cheek and sways a little.

‘I know you’re a virgin,’ he says, ‘and I reckon you oughta stay one. I just want to hold you real close, so I can sleep.’

He can’t tell if she’s on the verge of laughter or tears, so he smiles. ‘Put on the pyjamas, sweetheart.’

In a small voice, she asks, ‘Do you want to watch?’

‘Well, sure,’ he says, stretching his arms along the headboard and resting his head on the wall. ‘If you don’t mind.’

Diane turns her back to him to unzip her dress, fumbling a little when it gets caught on her bra. She’s wearing white underclothes, and the skin on her back is lighter than that on her arms. From the small indentations above her panties, he can see where the dress was tight on her waist. His cock jumps, but he ignores it and takes a swig of water. He can pick up some other girl tomorrow afternoon, between shows, an older one who has already been spoiled and knows what she’s doing. For now, he must focus on rest. It is so hard, these days, to allow himself to slip into the warm darkness of sleep. Even when his body is exhausted, his mind still skips in loops. If he can hold this girl, maybe it will be easier to relax into the oblivion he craves. The pills usually work, but the whole process will be sweetened by the presence of a girl.

He doesn’t tell her to turn around. As she steps into the pyjamas, her thighs shiver.

‘You look real nice,’ he says, and she almost vaults to the bed, diving beneath the covers and lying next to him with the sheet pulled up to her neck.

Elvis clicks off the light, then reaches for her.

‘Oh, my God,’ she whispers, as he aims his lips at her face. He can already feel the pills’ heaviness settling in his limbs. Diane stays absolutely still, apparently frozen to the mattress, until he finds her ear and nibbles it, and then she turns and holds him fiercely. He kisses her lips and feels her body loosen beneath his hands until she is a warm mass up against him. He guides her hand to his cock and together they bring him off with a few swift strokes. Then he buries his face in her chest and allows the drug to take hold.

‘You’ll be here when I wake up, won’t you, baby?’ he whispers.

‘Yes,’ she breathes. ‘Yes.’

* * *

Another minute seems too long to wait: he has been on the train from New York for twenty-seven hours. He tells anybody who asks that he won’t fly because it makes his mama too jittery, but the truth is he fears being up in the air and would rather endure twenty-seven hours on a train than board any plane. Twenty-seven hours of looking out of the window and seeing nothing much, save his own reflection and that of the Colonel’s cigar bobbing as he talks of what’s next and when (always now) and how much money it will make them. Twenty-seven hours of combing his hair, rearranging the pens in his shirt pocket, swapping jokes with Scotty and Bill and his cousins Junior and Bobby, his travelling companions, there for the ride and, as Gladys has said, to give him that family feeling, even when he’s away from home. Twenty-seven hours of intense July heat that has the sweat trickling into his eyes. Twenty-seven hours of checking on Junior, who sits next to Elvis like a dog guarding his master. But the master must also control the dog, for Junior is a Section 8, an ex-serviceman who went crazy in Korea and shot a group of civilians. Throughout the trip, he’s sipped bourbon from a flask, twitched at unseen threats, grinned whenever he’s managed to tune in to one of Elvis’s jokes.

Twenty-seven hours of girls peeping at him and whispering, Is it him? Didn’t we see him on TV? It is, it’s him! Giggles, smiles, longing looks. The occasional kiss.

That, at least, has been fun.

The Colonel has spoken to the railroad guard, and the train makes an unscheduled stop at White Station so Elvis can save time getting back to his new house on Audubon Drive. He tells Junior and Bobby there’s no need to come with him; they must be tired and it’ll be easier for them to get home from downtown Memphis.

He steps from the train, relieved to be alone for the first time in days, and waves to the guard. Once the carriages have rumbled away, there’s no noise save the tapping of his white buck shoes along the sidewalk. He is carrying nothing but the rough cuts from his recent recording session. Junior will bring his suitcase to the house, later. But the acetates are too precious to leave with anybody, even the Colonel. And he can’t wait to play them to his mother and to Barbara, who has been keeping Gladys company. She is good at that. The two of them often go out shopping, or for a bite to eat, together. He’s spoken to them every night, reassuring them that he’s just fine, it’s going wonderful well, and he’ll be back. Although sometimes he wondered if he’d ever make it.

Squinting at the sun-bleached road, he remembers it’s morning, before nine-thirty. Most days he has no idea what time it is. If he’s not on the road, driving to the next show, then he’s in a hotel, waiting to go on. Every hour of every day is spent anticipating the moment he will step onstage and become his best self. Each day brings so much pleasure and excitement and terror that he feels as though he is balanced always on the edge of the rooftop of the Peabody Hotel, peering down at the fast flow of the Mississippi and the blinding lights of the city. Sometimes those lights hurt his eyes and that river seems mighty close to his nose.

The Colonel tells him not to worry. ‘The thing about it,’ he says, ‘is not to get too bothered. Nobody ever died from nerves, or lack of sleep.’ Thank God the Colonel is here to steer him through all this. It seems to Elvis that his manager has seen it all and can deal with just about anything. When the press exploded in righteous fury over Elvis shaking his ass on The Milton Berle Show, calling him vulgar and accusing him of the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos (that phrase had stuck in his mind), the Colonel’s only reaction was to announce that he was going to get a wiggle-meter. If Elvis stopped singing, he said, he could still put him onstage and count the wiggles.

Elvis means to walk all the way to his house, even though he’s not exactly sure of the route. It’s hot already, and his toes are rubbing together in his shoes. When he gets home, his pool should be finished. He imagines diving in, Barbara watching as he parts the cool water like one of those Acapulco guys. Then a taxicab rolls by, and he hails it, just because he can. He has a bundle of money in his pocket bigger than anything his daddy ever brought home. As soon as he gets through the door, he’ll hand half of it to his mother.

The driver winds down the window and looks him over. Elvis senses the man’s hesitation. The words the Employment Officer used when he left Humes High run through his mind: Elvis Presley is something of a flashily dressed playboy type. The driver will have noticed his black sport coat and matching pegged pants, white shirt and white knitted tie, and his long, greasy forelock. After twenty-seven hours on a train, he doesn’t smell so good. Possibly the driver assumes he’s spent the night in a bordello. Elvis almost apologises for his appearance, wanting the older man to know that he has just been to New York to appear on two television shows and cut a record. But instead he removes the money roll from his pocket and pretends to check it. Immediately, the driver opens the door and asks him where he’s going.

‘Ten thirty-four Audubon Drive, please, sir.’

The driver sits up straight. Audubon is one of the best streets in Memphis, home to the golf-club set, filled with brand new, ranch-type houses. Frank and Betty Pidgeon have already invited the Presleys over for cocktails.

In the back of the cab, Elvis places his acetates carefully on the seat beside him, resting one hand on the paper sleeve. As they sail through the quiet streets, the driver keeps glancing at him in the rear-view mirror. The sunlight falls through the trees like a blessing. A surge of delight goes through Elvis, thinking of his mother’s face as he walks up their wide driveway, earlier than expected.

‘Sure is good to be back in Memphis,’ he says.

The driver grunts.

Elvis tries again. ‘Beautiful morning, ain’t it?’

‘What number Audubon, again?’

‘Ten thirty-four.’

The winding tree-lined avenue opens up before them. Each place – wooden-shuttered, car-porched, hemmed by lawns so green and neat they look like carpets – is immaculate, at least on the outside. He tries to remember what his house looks like, exactly – has it got green or blue board-and-batten sidings? The shutters are black, for sure, as is the door. There’s no porch, which was one of the things Gladys first noticed about the house. It didn’t matter that they had a large patio out back; where, she’d wanted to know, was she going to sit to greet her neighbours and drink lemonade? And what about that lawn? So much grass. They’d never be able to keep it neat. He’d reminded her that they could get a boy to do that, now. She and Vernon needn’t lift a finger. Behind a smile, she’d hidden some reaction he couldn’t read.

He unrolls his window to let the warm air in and get a better view of his house. And there they are, waiting for him. Every time he comes home he worries they’ll be gone and he’ll have to walk through his new gates alone, unwatched. As fast as this thing began, it might disappear. The girls will scream at somebody else. They won’t be merely indifferent to him, they’ll hate him. He’s heard them booing the warm-up acts to his show, just because those entertainers are not Elvis Presley. Pretty soon, he might not be the Elvis Presley that they want.

But, for now, here they are, and he can’t help grinning. There are more girls than usual: maybe forty, aged from around thirteen to sixteen, some clutching gifts, all in their best clothes. They’ll have heard that Elvis will be back in town; he’s playing Russwood Park tonight. A few of them touch the new fence lovingly; some do not take their eyes from the house, drinking in the place where he lives. Mostly, though, they are chatting among themselves, clearly not expecting to see him at this hour.

‘What’s going on here?’ asks the driver, laughing in disbelief at the sight of so many young ladies crowding the pavement.

‘That’s my house, sir.’

The driver swivels his head around. ‘It is?’

‘Maybe drop me a little way along the road.’

As the car comes close to the house, a few of the girls recognise Elvis, and there are squeals. Some rush to the kerbside, waving and calling his name. Others stay back, clutching the gates for support, jaws open.

The cab pulls in just beyond ten thirty-four.

‘Who they waiting for?’ the driver asks.

Elvis pushes a few bills into the driver’s hand. ‘Sir, I have absolutely no idea,’ he says, climbing out.

On the sidewalk, the girls come to a halt a few yards before him, suddenly shy. One bites her own hand. One lets out little yelps like a pup. But mostly they just stare. Forty pairs of young female eyes are on him, and they are hungry for detail.

‘Well, good morning, ladies,’ Elvis says, holding the acetates loosely by his side. ‘It sure is good to see y’all.’

This is not like after a show. Here the girls stand and gawp and giggle, but they keep a respectful distance. And it is a wonderful thing, to be so observed, so loved, by these young women. All thoughts of his aching feet are gone. He keeps walking towards his house, and they part to let him through. He’s learned that it’s important to keep moving, so you don’t have to push anybody out of the way. That would be bad manners. After all, they have done this for him. It is thanks to them that he can ride home in a taxi to his new house on Audubon. It’s what he says in any interview the Colonel allows him to give (and they are getting fewer): Without them, I’d still be driving a truck.

‘Elvis!’ A plump girl, younger than the rest, gasps and touches his arm with damp fingers.

‘Hello, honey.’ He smiles, letting his eyes rest on hers for a moment. And keeps moving.

Record sleeves are thrust towards him. He signs each one with his now-practised flourish, and thanks the girls for buying his music. And keeps moving.

‘Whatcha got there, Elvis?’

‘My new records, honey. Y’all be able to buy them soon enough.’

Another squeal. He laughs at the strangeness of it, that high-pitched wail of female hysteria splitting the polished air of Audubon Drive before ten in the morning.

One of them, he notices, is petite, dark-haired, bright-eyed in the way he especially likes. Around fourteen, he guesses. Dressed in a pretty little cap-sleeved blouse and blue skirt. Reaching the gate, he stops and holds his hand out to her, and she clasps it.

‘Thank you,’ she mouths.

‘My pleasure, sweetheart.’ He kisses her surprised cheek, letting his lips linger there. She exhales a shuddering breath, which smells powerfully of bubblegum.

‘What’s your name?’ he whispers.

‘Frances,’ she gasps.

Then he straightens up and waves. ‘I gotta go see my folks, girls.’

They stay respectfully behind the iron gates. Halfway to the house, he turns and waves again, and the girls, glassy-eyed, give a collective squeal.

By now Vernon is opening the front door. They shake hands and clap one another on the back. Vernon wastes no time in stepping beyond his son, gawping at the girls and waving. Elvis lets it go, because Gladys is waiting in the hallway.

She’s wearing the new summer dress that he bought her, and her smile is bright, but, seeing the shadows beneath her eyes, he has to look away. He puts his acetates on the hall table, then falls gratefully into her embrace.

‘Son,’ she says. ‘It’s been so long.’

‘Baby.’

It’s been ten days. But now he’s home he feels he’s been away for years. He closes his eyes and inhales her scent. It is the only thing that is familiar about this house, and he tries not to notice that other smell on her, the one that’s been there ever since he started making records. She’s drinking more and more, he knows it. He’s seen the empty bottles of Schlitz beer, stashed in paper sacks beneath the drainer. As if paper could hide them. It’s like she wants him to know.

‘We saw you on the TV show last night. You were wonderful. We’re so proud of you.’

She’s said it so many times now, but every time it makes him smile.

‘Funny thing, singing to that dog,’ says Vernon.

Lifting his head, Elvis says, ‘About as funny as a crutch.’

‘You must be hungry,’ says Gladys.

‘I ain’t had nothing but sandwiches since I left. I didn’t want to touch a thing you ain’t made for me.’

‘I’ll fix you some breakfast.’

‘I wanna get in the pool first, Mama.’

‘There’s a problem with the pool, son.’ Vernon has shut the door and is beckoning Elvis to look out of the kitchen window.

‘Thing won’t fill. I tried everything.’

Elvis stays exactly where he is, close to his mother. ‘There’s no water in the pool?’

‘It just won’t fill.’

A pause. ‘Where’s Barbara?’

‘She’s on her way,’ says Vernon. ‘We didn’t think you’d get here till later. Colonel said—’

‘What use is a pool without water?’

Gladys steps in. ‘Maybe Elvis can fix it. Why don’t you two go take a look together?’

‘Not now. Let me use the bathroom first.’

His voice is sharper than he’d intended, and the look descends onto Gladys’s face. Since that time she’d carried him from the stage, something has shrunk within her, and now she wears this look more often. It’s the look of a woman lost in something she cannot understand. Sometimes she stares into space for the longest time with this look on her face. Even in the beautiful house he’s bought her, standing on this thick carpet, she wears this look! It makes him mad to see her pull it now, after he’s been gone so long.

Vernon steps aside to let his son pass. But Elvis can’t remember how the house is laid out, and he pauses, unsure.

‘It’s at the end of the hall, son,’ says Gladys, quietly. ‘First on the right.’

There are seven rooms in this house, and Elvis has yet to work out what they’re all for. The one next to his is full of the hundreds of teddy bears he’s received from his fans. Gladys has told him she goes in there when he’s away and shakes the dust off each one, patting down their synthetic fur and rearranging them so they don’t get misshapen. Sometimes she plays the tunes they have hidden in their bellies. He knows some of them arrive wrapped in girls’ underthings, and that Gladys keeps those, too, in a trunk out beneath the car porch. He’s not sure if she can’t bear to put them in the trash, or if she just doesn’t want him looking at them.

He closes the door to his bedroom, which is at the back of the house. The room still smells of the earthiness of new plaster. Gladys had it decorated, as he’d asked her to, with pale yellow paper, flecked bright blue and orange. He wishes he could peek at the girls – he can hear the buzz of their voices from here – but instead he has a view of his father, son-of-a-bitching at the pool as he wrestles with the hose. When Vernon stumbles on a cinderblock the construction people have left in the yard, he curses louder.

Elvis sits on his bed and removes his sport coat and shirt, then flings them in a corner. His mother will pick them up later. She’ll be glad to do it, after he’s been away for so long.

On the flouncy white coverlet is a stuffed blue dog. Gazing into its sad, slightly uneven eyes, he thinks again of singing to that basset hound on The Steve Allen Show. At first, he hadn’t minded wearing the tux the producers had insisted upon: in it, he’d felt sharp and powerful. He could be Dean Martin in that tux! He could be better than Sinatra! Everyone in the New York studio would respect him in such clothes. They’d know that he meant business. But then the director had greeted him with a firm handshake and the words, ‘What are you doing to my daughter?’ His gaze snagged on Elvis’s hair. ‘You’re driving my little girl to distraction.’

‘I’m sure sorry to hear that, sir—’

‘Are you aware of what you do, onstage? All that grinding. You can’t be, can you?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Don’t get me wrong. I wish you all the luck in the world, son, and I’m glad to have you on the show but … personally? I’m not sure what you do is suitable for young Americans. Think about it. Would you let your own daughter watch something like that on television?’

There was a pause. Then Elvis said, very quietly, ‘Sir, I think you oughta give your little girl what she wants.’

The director’s gaze fell squarely on Elvis’s face. ‘My little girl already has exactly what she wants. Enjoy yourself, now.’

And then they’d brought the dog on. The thing was sweating and terrified and kept letting off the most gut-turning farts. But even that had amused Elvis, at first. He’d goofed around in rehearsal, still enjoying the tux, putting the dog’s top hat on his own head. Everybody had laughed, the director perhaps the most. When the cameras rolled, Elvis grabbed the dog by the mouth and got a handful of warm slobber. He felt the stuff slide beneath his new ring. Wiping his fingers on his black pants, he suddenly saw himself as Gladys would see him that night on her television set: wailing to a stupid animal, trussed up like a turkey. Nobody would remember the song. They’d just remember the dog in the top hat.

He punches the stuffed dog on the nose, once, twice, driving it into the coverlet. Then he holds it close to his face and whispers, Sorry, doggie, I’m sorry. The thing is a present from a fan, after all, and has hearts and kisses drawn on its label.

The doorbell chimes, and, hearing Barbara’s voice, he throws the dog to the floor and dashes from the room.

She is waiting for him in the living room. Next to her sits Dodger, who has taken to the new house better than any of them, and appears relaxed on the cream couch, even though her ramrod face hardly ever cracks.

He kisses his grandmother’s loose cheek first. ‘Where’s Mama?’

‘Where do you reckon? In the kitchen, fixing you something good to eat.’

‘Hi, sweetheart.’ He kisses Barbara, right in the dip between her earlobe and neck, just below her pearl-cluster earring, which makes her draw back. She’s looking, he knows, at his bare chest, and is clearly embarrassed to see him in such a state of undress with two ladies in this pristine room. But he won’t apologise. She ought to have been here when he arrived, as she’d promised.

The wood panelling in here makes it shadowy, even on a bright morning, and Elvis moves impatiently around the room, flicking on all the lamps. When he’s on the road, he sends one home from every town, selecting the most elaborate models he can find. He wants his mama to have every corner of every room lit up; there should be no gloomy spots in this house.

Then he produces his acetates from behind his back and puts one on the turntable. ‘You wanna hear my new recordings?’

‘Sure I do,’ says Barbara, smoothing her white dress over her knees.

‘This one’s called “Don’t Be Cruel”.’

As the bass line hits, he hovers next to the player, then, seeing nobody else is moving, sits on the couch. Barbara and Dodger stare at the black-and-gold standing ashtrays as if the furniture is singing the song, not him. He leans back on the nubbly fabric, pretending not to care. He can’t help glancing at Barbara’s face, though, watching for signs of indifference. When he hears himself make the low, slightly comic, Hmmm! he’s disappointed that she doesn’t smile. She just stares at the ashtray, fiddling with her earring.

He knows that whatever she says won’t be enough to convince him that she loves it as much as she should. Barbara likes it best when he sings ballads. Sometimes they sit at the organ together and try her favourite duet, ‘Make Believe’ from Show Boat.

He’s up before the song finishes, changing the acetate to ‘Hound Dog’. This time he stands over her, willing her to move or react. He winces slightly when he hears a note he wishes he’d sung better, but he knows it’s a good record. At his urging, they’d done thirty-one takes, and, for once, everyone in the studio had listened when he told them what he wanted, what he thought the song could be, if only they could get it right.

By the second chorus he can stand it no more. He grabs Barbara by the wrists and yanks her to her feet. ‘Dance with me,’ he says.

She rocks back and forth on her heels, ducks beneath his arm when he holds it out, and smiles. He takes the opportunity to plant a wet kiss on her mouth but she pushes him gently away, glancing at Dodger.

Dodger tuts, then hauls herself from the couch. ‘An old woman can tell when she ain’t wanted,’ she says, leaving the room.

The two of them look at each other and laugh.

‘That wasn’t nice, Elvis. Poor Mrs Presley.’

‘Forget her. What do you think of my records?’

‘They’re wonderful. The best yet.’ Her black eyes shine.

‘Do you really think so?’

‘I do.’

‘They’re for you, baby.’

Then she lets him hold her tightly, and doesn’t resist when he runs a hand up her skirt.

Elvis takes Red to the Mid-South Fairgounds to spend some time throwing balls at bottles; knocking coconuts off plinths; shooting targets; riding the Pippin, the Whip and the Tumblebug; and winning teddy bears. Aware of how difficult it will be to do this unnoticed, he wears a trilby pulled down low and a pair of sunglasses. Seeing him, Red smirks. ‘You look just like Elvis Presley in that,’ he says.

It’s the night after the Russwood Park show. It isn’t long before a crowd gathers, alerted to Elvis’s presence by the roar of his Harley-Davidson, and it takes Red and him an hour to reach the shooting gallery. All the way, Elvis knows that Red is keeping one eye peeled for trouble, but he also knows that his friend is watching him as he thanks his well-wishers, signs anything they hand over, and kisses almost every cheek offered, while Red himself is ignored or pushed aside. So it comes as little surprise to Elvis when, after they’ve managed to get to the Walking Charlies and he’s aiming to smack another moving dummy with a baseball, a fight breaks out.

‘He ain’t no fucking faggot!’ he hears Red yell.

By the corner of the stall, Red has a blonde boy, no older than fifteen, by the collar, and he’s raising his fist.

Elvis makes a lunge for his friend, grabbing him round the waist, trying to drag him back.

But Red digs his heels into the grass, twists free, and lands a right hook on the boy’s jaw. Elvis hears the crunch of bone on bone. The boy collapses into the canvas side of the stall. Just moments ago, the crowd had been cheering for Elvis as he tried to sock those Charlies right in the mouth and win a teddy bear for anybody who asked him. Now everybody goes quiet.

Elvis backs away from his friend.

Red glares at him. ‘What do you expect?’ he yells. ‘Your mama asked me to protect you!’

On the grass, the boy holds his bleeding face and whimpers. Several older women have clustered about him, making dismayed noises. Behind, the dummies keep rolling along, grinning.

Before Elvis can decide whether to check on the boy, yell at Red, or turn and run, the stall’s owner appears, flanked by a couple of heavy-looking guys. ‘Mr Presley,’ he says, an excited expression on his leathery face, ‘your friend here better come with me to see a police officer, don’t you reckon?’

As he’s led away, Red doesn’t look back, and Elvis doesn’t call after him.

* * *

When they’d worked together at Britling’s Cafeteria downtown, Gladys had been impressed by Alberta Holman, even though the two women barely spoke. Gladys had poured the coffee and taken the orders while Alberta assisted the chef in the kitchen. Alberta always wore her hair in a red net and kept her apron cleaner than the other cooks did. She was careful to arrange food neatly on a plate, and not to let tomato juice slop over the lip, or leave grease smudged on the underside. Gladys noticed, too, that Alberta kept the dishes warm but not overheated; she never burned her hand on one of Alberta’s plates. Like the other coloured workers at Britling’s, Alberta addressed Gladys as ‘Miss Gladys’, and never initiated a conversation with a white member of staff. But when Gladys had asked her during one brief lull in the lunchtime shift about her family, Alberta had told her that they’d moved from the country, too, in search of more regular work, and a better life.

So when Vernon suggests that now is the time for the Presleys to hire a housekeeper, Gladys thinks of Alberta.

‘I’ll call Britling’s,’ she says, ‘and offer her the job.’

It is early evening, and they are hiding from the August sun beneath the umbrellas on their patio. Elvis is away again, having recently left for California to make his movie – the first of seven he’s signed up for – but there are still a handful of girls peeking through the fence which runs around their backyard. Vernon has dragged an electric fan out and occasionally it blows the front of his unbuttoned shirt open, revealing the sweaty folds of his stomach. Gladys eyes them distastefully, but decides against chiding her husband in the presence of the fans.

He laughs. ‘You can’t just offer her the job. You gotta get references. We don’t want any old darkie coming in here, stealing Elvis’s stuff.’

Although she barely knows her, Gladys says, ‘Alberta ain’t like that. And ain’t no call for references. We worked together.’

Flies dip and buzz around their heads. Vernon says, ‘Then I guess I got to interview the woman.’

‘Don’t trouble yourself,’ says Gladys, breezily. ‘I can do it.’

At three o’clock the following afternoon, Gladys opens the door to Alberta, who is wearing a long-sleeved blue dress, despite the heat, and a pair of black sliders. She is around Gladys’s age, but small, with thin wrists and a long neck, and she moves more slowly than she did before. She smiles briefly, but then her delicate features settle back into the carefully blank mask that Gladys now remembers.

Showing Alberta into the living room, Gladys can smell the grease and coffee on her. She tells her to take a seat on the easy chair, next to the coffee table where she’s set a pitcher of iced tea in readiness.

Pouring the drinks, Gladys spills a little on the pile of magazines Elvis has placed there. Many of them have his picture on the cover. But she ignores this and tries to remember what she should ask first. She must pretend, now, to be one of those folks who have questions to get through and papers to fill in. As the mother of a new movie star, she must pretend to be more than that, even – but how to begin?

‘Well,’ she says, wiping her damp palms on her dress.

Alberta waits, her dark eyes focused on Gladys’s shoulder.

‘I don’t know what your wages are over Britling’s, Alberta, but we sure would like to offer you more, because I know you’re a mighty good cook.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘You’d be cooking for visitors, sometimes, because Elvis entertains a good deal, when he’s home.’

‘I ain’t no stranger to hard work, Miss Gladys.’

‘Oh, I know. But I’d cook Elvis’s meals for him. Ordinarily, I mean.’

Alberta sips her tea and nods. Then she speaks slowly and deliberately. ‘So what I gotta do when Mr Elvis is home?’

‘Oh, I’m sure they’ll be heaps! Shopping and … cleaning and everything,’ says Gladys, with a wave of her hand.

Alberta raises her eyebrows. On her face is a small smile, as if she’s amused by something. But it vanishes as quickly as it appeared. ‘Sounds just fine to me, ma’am.’

‘That’s settled, then!’ In her relief, Gladys gulps back the rest of her tea. Then she asks, ‘Are your folks doing good, Alberta?’

‘Oh yes, Miss Gladys. Real good, thank you. But not as good as yours!’

Gladys nods. ‘We’ve been blessed.’

‘Amen,’ says Alberta, looking around. Gladys watches her take in the contents of the room: the walnut TV console, the brand new three-piece suite, the framed oil portrait of Elvis on the wall, the lamps on every available surface.

‘And how are you yourself, Miss Gladys?’ Alberta asks.

Gladys glances down at her hands, taken aback by the question. Because they are so keen to know about Elvis, few people ask her how she is. Flesh bulges from beneath the edges of her diamond cocktail ring, and, sensing Alberta’s eyes following her own, she wishes she’d taken the thing off before inviting her into the house.

‘Oh,’ she says, sliding her hands beneath her thighs, ‘I’m just fine, thank you. Just fine.’

She is about to show Alberta out, having taken her on a brief tour of the house, when Vernon arrives home.

From the flush on his cheeks, Gladys guesses he’s spent the afternoon in a bar, telling strangers that yes, he really is the daddy of Elvis Presley, and yes, it’s true that right now he’s shooting his first-ever movie out in Hollywood. Seeing Alberta, he pauses in the hallway. Clutched to his chest is a copy of Life magazine.

‘Well, looky here,’ he says. ‘This our new maid?’

‘This here’s Alberta,’ says Gladys. ‘She’s starting as our housekeeper next week.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Without smiling, Vernon looks Alberta over, taking his time. ‘Ain’t that just fine?’ he says.

Alberta keeps her eyes on Gladys’s shoes.

‘We’re real happy about it, ain’t we, Alberta?’ says Gladys.

‘Yes, Miss Gladys.’

Vernon grins and winks at his wife.

‘We’ll be seeing you Monday, then, Alberta,’ says Gladys, moving towards the door.

Vernon blocks the women’s path. ‘You know,’ he says, addressing Alberta, ‘some folks back in my home town used to call me a no-good jellybean. But here I am, in my ranch-style house, with a swimming pool and a housekeeper! How do you like that?’

Alberta is still staring at Gladys’s feet.

‘I said, how do you like that?’

‘It’s just swell, Mr Vernon,’ says Alberta, raising her eyes to his chest.

‘You bet! But have you seen this here magazine?’

He thrusts his copy of Life into her face. His eyes are wide, and even Gladys can smell the liquor on him.

‘Vernon,’ Gladys warns. ‘Alberta’s gotta be getting along now.’

‘It’s got a story about my son’s rise to fame and fortune, but do you know what they say about him in here?’ He taps the cover.

Now Gladys looks at the magazine. Elvis’s face is not on the front, but she can see his name. After all the fuss following her son’s appearance on Milton Berle, she knows better than to expect everything written about him to be praising. He’s been accused of causing the young women of America to lose their morals, teenagers to riot and the races to mix. He’s been called obscene, and compared to an animal. Some of it has had her and Elvis weeping together.

‘Some low-down preacher from Jacksonville has denounced Elvis in church!’ says Vernon, clutching wildly at the pages, trying to find the story. ‘Now, do you call that fair, Alberta? Elvis is a God-fearing boy who likes to sing a few songs, and this damned preacher has the gall to pray for his soul!’

Gladys tries to snatch the magazine from her husband. ‘Who did such a thing?’ she demands.

Vernon holds the magazine out of her reach. ‘I don’t want you to see it, Glad. I’m gonna destroy this thing,’ he says, ‘and then I’m gonna dance on it!’ And with one swipe, he wrenches off the cover.

Alberta stands back, seemingly ready to witness the show. Gladys pushes past her husband and opens the front door.

‘Well, so long, Alberta,’ she sings. ‘Thanks for coming over!’

Reluctantly, Alberta picks her way past Vernon, who has started pulling the magazine to bits. She inches out of the house, murmuring goodbye. Gladys catches her eye and, to her relief, no longer sees any amusement there.

Having firmly shut the door, Gladys turns to watch her husband, who is tearing through the magazine, sending staples pinging off every which way. He rips a page of photographs to shreds. She sees the words ‘fads’, ‘fears’ and ‘antics’ before they are destroyed. With his heel, Vernon grinds the paper into the carpet. Then he stomps on it.

‘You finished?’ she asks.

‘Nope.’

Lifting his arms, he begins to sing. ‘I got a new place to dwell, right at the top of dollar street, in cheque-book motel!’ He grabs at an imaginary microphone and runs one hand through his hair, mimicking his son with expert precision.

‘I been so loaded, baby, I’m-a so loaded, I could die!’ His voice is good, as it always was. Vernon drops to his knees and looks at her with beseeching eyes. All around him, the shreds of the story flutter in his wake.

Gladys shakes her head, but can’t help a smile.

‘Get up offa your knees,’ she says, gently. ‘We got us a maid, now. We can’t act like fools no more.’

* * *

Even at nine o’clock in the evening, with the September sun almost setting, it’s hot. Elvis bobs in his swimming pool, waiting for the girls. Gloria, Heidi and Frances, all fourteen years old, all sweet, all crazy, have been coming over since he returned from Hollywood. His new buddy Cliff, a disc jockey from Jackson who has stepped in for Red, is picking them up for their first pool-and-pyjama party. Vernon and the Colonel told Red after he hit the guy at the Fairgrounds that he was no longer welcome, and Red announced his intention to join the marines. Maybe it’s for the best. Cliff is less likely than Red to throw punches around, and he’s also better with girls. He knows how to talk to the parents. He sings a little, but with a mouth like a train running at full speed, he’s unlikely to steal their hearts.

The pool shimmers orange and yellow. Elvis pushes his fingers back and forth, making the colours bleed, feeling the resistance of the water, telling himself that it’s good to have these moments of ease, when he can watch the sunset and feel the water on his skin. He can hardly believe he’s spent the last month shooting a movie. During that time, he barely saw the sky. Was any of that real? He’s learning, he thinks, how to get through the days even though the days seem like a dream. He’s worked out that it’s best to think only of what is happening right now. Otherwise there’s too much information in your brain. On set, he tried not to think about being a movie star, or how the picture would turn out, or the fact that he was sitting next to the celebrated and virtuous beauty Debra Paget (Debra fucking Paget!) but of what his next line was. Kissing Debra had been delicious, and she had responded to him, he just knew it, not a movie response but a real, female response – she even complimented him on his technique. He knows he’s good at this stuff; he’s tender, starts softly and works his way in. He learned a lot with Dixie and has been practising ever since.

He closes his eyes and submerges himself completely. Mr Webb always said the same thing. ‘That was very good, Elvis. Now, let’s try it again …’ So he never knew what the director really thought, and, in the end, was glad he didn’t. But Mr Webb had seemed impressed with Elvis’s theory about the great screen actors – Brando, Dean, Clift. Had Mr Webb noticed that they never smiled? He’d made a study of them all, and they hardly ever looked happy. He didn’t mention that he’d spent many hours perfecting his own scowl in the mirror, or that he’d learned it, initially, from his granddaddy, JD. But even the long-perfected scowl hadn’t looked right when he’d watched the rough cut. Seeing himself up there, his face as big as a truck, made him want to hide in his mama’s lap. He looked like a big goofy hick. And why did they have him singing? If it was a serious project, as the Colonel tried to assure Elvis it was, it was unnatural to burst into song in the middle of the picture. It had felt strange, anyhow, without Scotty and Bill behind him. Mr Webb had decided they weren’t hillbilly enough for the movie, which they found funny – at least for a moment.

He’ll be laughed out of Hollywood. He knows it.

‘Elvis?’

He comes up for air and there’s his mother, standing at the side of the pool, frowning.

‘You all right, son?’

‘I’m fine, Mama.’

‘You were under an awful long time.’

‘Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’

And he goes under again, so she has to wait, her body casting a shadow across the water. That shadow has grown larger over the summer, despite her diet pills. They’d worked, at first. He’d seen her pleasure at being able to buy new dresses with the money he gave her. One day she’d come home in a loud polka-dot blouse and skirt, declaring, ‘If Mrs King could see me now!’ Vernon had even obliged her with a soft wolf whistle, and she’d slapped him across the head, overjoyed.

There’s a muffled sound above, but he won’t come up. Not yet.

The best thing about her diet pills, though, is that it’s easy for him to steal them. The first time he’d tried one, it was like he’d been plugged into the grid, despite the few hours’ sleep he’d had. He could sail right through the day without getting bothered about one little thing. His brain seemed one step ahead of his body and of everybody else, too, which was useful on the movie set.

‘Son!’

Hearing the warning in her voice, even through the water, he emerges.

‘The girls are here. You want me to tell them to come on out?’

‘Have they brought their bathing suits along?’

‘I guess.’

‘Then tell them to get changed quick and get in this pool. It’ll be dark soon.’

‘All right.’ But she doesn’t move. ‘Elvie?’

‘Yes, Mama?’

‘I like Frances best, don’t you?’

She keeps her gaze on the walnut trees at the back of their property.

Gloria came to Audubon first, because her daddy has fixed the Presley automobiles for as long as they’ve been in Memphis, and Vernon owed him a favour. But Frances is the reason Gloria has been invited back. Gloria had brought her two friends along at Elvis’s suggestion, and he’d recognised Frances straight away. She was the pretty one he’d noticed at the gate on his way back from New York earlier in the summer.

‘I like her, Mama.’

‘She told me she can sew and cook, both.’

‘She’s only fourteen.’

‘By the time you’re ready for marriage, Frances will be a good age.’

Elvis laughs, but the thought has crossed his mind, too.

‘Are you about done now?’ he asks.

‘I’ll be done when I see you happy,’ she says.

‘I am happy, Mama. I’m a movie star with a million-dollar future. I’m Elvis Presley. You must be the only person for miles around who don’t know that.’

She crouches down and reaches out to stroke his hair. ‘You know what I mean, Elvie,’ she says, softly. ‘Mama’s worried about her baby.’

He kisses her fingers and says, ‘Go tell them little girls to hurry along.’

As she walks away, he notices that she is too upright and deliberate in her steps to be entirely sober.

The red ruffles on Gloria’s bathing suit make her look like a lapdog gussied up for a show. She’s already laughing. Gloria is always letting out a high-pitched, uneven laugh, often at nothing. When Elvis imitates it, she does it even more. She has the hair of a poodle – black and fiercely curly. The others are dressed in strictly practical bathing suits – navy blue for Frances, black for Heidi. Frances’s calves are exquisitely curved, like expensive pieces of furniture. Heidi is the tallest, and has the most developed breasts, but also the most serious-looking mouth. She is in charge.

They stand in a tight clump on the flagstones at the other end of the pool, gawping at him.

Elvis keeps his body beneath the water. ‘Hi, girls!’ He waves. ‘Come on in! The water’s real fine.’

Without taking their eyes from him, they whisper to one another behind their hands.

‘Y’all ain’t afraid of Elvis, are you?’

‘Frances says she ain’t coming in,’ says Heidi.

‘Then why in the world is she wearing that bathing suit?’

‘She can’t swim.’

Frances stares at her feet.

Gloria runs along the flags, yelling, ‘Here I come!’ then she jumps into the water, making a splash large enough to soak his head. She comes up laughing, almost nose to nose with him. His hair drips in his eyes but he does not wipe the water away. There’s a pause. ‘Hi, Gloria,’ he says, keeping his voice soft and low.

‘Hi, Elvis.’

‘Hi, Gloria.’

‘Hi, Elvis.’

‘Hi, Gloria.’

‘Hi, Elvis,’ she giggles, a little uncertain.

‘Wanna have some fun?’

‘Well, sure.’

He puts a hand on her wet curls and pushes her down. Holding her beneath the water, he turns to Frances and says, ‘Don’t sweat it, honey. I can’t swim, either.’

Gloria kicks and wriggles. For a young girl, she is strong. He lets her come back up, wet curls streaked across her face like a mess of turnip greens. She gasps for breath. ‘Oh!’ she shouts. ‘Oh! You!’

‘Me?’

‘You!’

She’s splashing him with all her might, but he ignores her. ‘Frances, Heidi, get yourselves in this pool, or Gloria here’s going under again!’ He reaches for Gloria’s head, but she dodges away, shrieking.

He smiles to himself at the thought of his daddy’s irritation at the noise. Vernon is in the den, watching TV with Cliff. He’s probably turning up the volume right now. He’s warned Elvis about the neighbours’ complaints, too. The residents of Audubon Drive have written a letter, which Vernon read aloud to his son when Gladys was out shopping.

We hope you’ll understand our alarm at the disruption caused not only by the volume of the music coming from 1034, but also by the multiple vehicles arriving and departing from your property at all times of day, not to mention the frankly riotous presence of hundreds of teenage girls on the street, many of whom seem to think nothing of stealing blades of grass and other ‘souvenirs’ not only from your garden but also from ours! Mr Presley Junior appears to keep irregular hours, which is obviously his business, but it becomes our business when it keeps us awake nights. We may be forced to make this a police matter if something cannot be worked out—

What they don’t yet know, and what he means to tell them, is that he’s discovered he’s the only one in the street who owns his property outright. If they want him out, let them buy him out.

Frances and Heidi are climbing in gingerly. While they pick their way across the pool, at pains not to get their hair wet, Elvis says to the bedraggled Gloria, ‘I’m sorry, honey, but you looked like you needed a good ducking.’

All three squeal as he chases them, lunging for their arms and legs, not knowing which limb belongs to which girl. As he ploughs through the pool, he glances up at the house and sees his mother, watching from the kitchen window. What’s strange is that she is looking not at him but at the darkening sky.

After the girls have dressed in the guest room, Elvis invites them into his bedroom. On the dresser, Gladys has left a tray loaded with milk and banana cake.

The girls sit on his flowered coverlet, chewing their cake and looking around. Frances, the shortest, swings her legs to and fro. Heidi cuddles the stuffed dog. Elvis is tired, now, and beginning to wish he hadn’t invited these teenagers over. He’s had enough of their giggling and their staring. Leaning back, he closes his eyes and suddenly gets lost someplace. This happens more and more, if he lets it. He feels his mind slipping away from the chaos of his life, and it’s not unpleasant. Half-heartedly, he tells himself to come back, repeating the words silently, unsure if they are his own or Jesse’s. Where have you gone, Elvis? Where are you? But still his eyes are closed and here’s celebrated-and-virtuous Debra’s face, right up close to his, her breath warm on his nose. Then Jesse says, Look at you, you’re surrounded by them! Where’s my girl, Elvis?

A crash from along the hall brings him back. Probably Cliff knocking over another ashtray. Clumsy son of a bitch.

Elvis opens his eyes. The girls are still there, staring. Heidi says, ‘Where’s your mother, Elvis?’

‘I don’t know.’

She’ll be in bed by now, sleeping it off. But from this end of the house, they won’t hear her wet snores.

Gloria widens her eyes. ‘So we’re all alone with Elvis Presley in his bedroom?’

‘Well, Cliff’s just along the hall with my daddy.’

‘Like I said,’ says Gloria. ‘All alone with Elvis Presley.’

‘You wanna go home, Gloria?’ he asks, unable to resist a flicker of annoyance. ‘I can ask Cliff to drive you.’

‘No!’

‘Then hush up,’ says Heidi, throwing the stuffed dog into Gloria’s lap. ‘You know nothing’s gonna happen with Elvis here. Don’t spoil it for the rest of us.’

‘That’s right, Heidi,’ says Elvis. ‘You are a very sensible young lady. Gloria, you could take a lesson or two from your friend here.’

Gloria lets out a long huff and flops back on the bed, the dog pressed to her face.

Frances says, ‘We’re real grateful, Elvis. We know how lucky we are to visit with you.’

Her quiet confidence reminds him of Dixie in the early days. The way she skated neatly round the Rainbow without a shred of arrogance or self-consciousness. Frances’s little dimpled smile is so sweet and sincere that he has a sudden longing to keep them all right here, on his bed, throughout the night. It would be better than sleeping alone.

‘Let me dry your hair before you go,’ he says. ‘I got this really neat new hairdryer.’ He finds it in the top drawer and plugs it in. It is pink, with a silver handle. ‘You don’t wanna catch a chill out there. Come on, girls, let’s sit pow-wow style.’

He rearranges himself on the bed, sitting cross-legged in the centre, the dryer poised and ready. The three girls follow suit, skirts resting on their rounded knees.

Beneath his fingers, Frances’s hair springs like something newborn. Her cheeks flare pink as he runs his comb through to the ends, scattering her blouse with droplets of moisture. She seems to be holding her breath.

‘You girls ought never, ever cut your hair,’ he instructs, and they all nod.

He switches the dryer off and combs through Frances’s damp waves. ‘Now. We’d better move on to kissing practice.’ Because they’d be disappointed to leave without a kiss, wouldn’t they? And he can’t disappoint his girls. ‘Whose turn is it?’

‘It’s Heidi’s turn,’ says Frances. ‘Gloria went last time.’

It is typical of Frances to remember the schedule. The others would have cheated. ‘Frances, I knew you would tell the truth, honey.’

‘Then it’s really my turn?’ says Heidi, leaning in slightly. Her hair is wild from the pool and her eyes are shining.

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s Frances’s, because she was honest.’

‘Lordy,’ says Gloria. ‘Frances? She ain’t never been kissed. She’s gonna pee in her pants.’

‘I am not!’ Frances thrusts her fists into the coverlet and looks as though she might cry.

‘I’m mighty glad to hear you ain’t been kissed, Frances. That’s the way it oughta be. You girls are lucky I’m here to teach you.’

‘We sure are!’ says Gloria.

Elvis laughs, but says, ‘Now, girls, this here’s a serious moment. Frances’s first kiss.’

They all nod and try to compose themselves.

Frances is staring at him, flushed to the neck. Her lips are tight and unsmiling. When he touches her shoulder, he realises she is trembling. ‘You don’t have to worry none, honey. I’m gonna be real gentle.’

Gloria and Heidi lean in as he moves his face closer to Frances’s, until the four of them are in danger of toppling together on the bed.

‘Scoot back, you two. Frances, close your eyes.’

‘But she wants to look at you, Elvis,’ says Gloria.

‘Hush up,’ says Heidi.

Frances shuts her eyes. Elvis glances at the others, who gape back. He winks, then focuses on his task. As he touches her lips with his, he puts his whole being into the kiss; it is deliberate and studied. Starting gentle, he slowly increases the pressure, and her shoulders go limp beneath his fingers. He thinks of Dixie, that first time in the car, the way she’d opened for him. The way she’d been so grateful. Not like those girls in Hollywood.

Feeling Frances’s lips begin to loosen, he draws back and says, ‘Frances, that was your first kiss. How did it feel?’

She cannot look at him. She shakes her head and covers her mouth with a hand.

‘Frances? You OK, honey?’

But she can’t seem to speak. A small stab of panic goes through him. Perhaps she’s going to run home to her daddy and say, ‘Elvis forced himself on me!’ The Colonel will be hopping mad if he finds out the girls are here without chaperones. If the papers get hold of it, he might as well forget his career. This will put the hullaballoo over him grinding his hips on Milton Berle in the shade.

Heidi puts an arm around Frances, who buries her face in her friend’s shoulder.

‘Frances?’ says Heidi.

Suddenly Frances lets out a sob and grabs Elvis’s arm, tightly. He shakes her off and leaps from the bed as if she were a rattlesnake. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he demands of Gloria. ‘I ain’t done nothing wrong! I’d never hurt none of you girls!’

‘She’s always been a little sensitive,’ says Gloria.

‘Frances?’ says Heidi. ‘Are you all right?’

Frances raises her head and looks at him, her eyes wet with tears. ‘That was … the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me,’ she says.

Elvis is so jumpy about Frances that instead of going to bed, he paces the patio, waiting for Cliff to return from delivering the girls home. From here, he can hear his mama’s snores, and every one grates on his nerves. He thinks about going in the house and shaking her awake, partly to ask for her advice on this, but partly to stop that sound she’s making. It’s like a spade dragged through wet gravel.

Cliff appears.

‘Everything all right?’ Elvis asks, aware that he’s standing too close to his friend.

Cliff studies Elvis’s face for a moment, then says, ‘Just fine.’

Elvis looks back towards the house. ‘You want something to drink?’

‘Naw.’ Cliff pulls up a lawn chair and sits, and Elvis does the same. They both look over the pool.

‘I was a little concerned,’ says Elvis, ‘that those girls got the wrong idea …’

For a while, Cliff is silent. They watch the bats flicker among the trees. Then, very slowly, Cliff says, ‘You know, I don’t wanna speak out of line here, but you might be careful not to ruin those girls.’

‘What did those little bitches say?’

‘I only meant – well, think about it, boss. Will they ever get over it? That girl, Frances – she looked like a goddamned zombie in the car. And they was all talking about how you kissed her.’ Cliff shakes his head and laughs.

‘We was practising, was all,’ says Elvis. ‘It was a game.’

‘It’s just – well. Seems to me that girl ain’t never gonna have a thrill like that again. I mean, she just kissed a goddamn movie star! How’s her husband gonna beat that?’

Elvis looks at Cliff and grins. ‘Seems to me like I ain’t ruined nothing for her, then.’

‘How you figure that, boss?’

‘I’ve ruined things for her husband, is all.’

* * *

It’s as cold as a meat locker on the sidewalk, even in her long fur coat, but the golden light coming from Goldsmith’s Christmas windows sets the street ablaze. Gladys apologises as she bundles her unwieldy frame past Dottie Harmony’s neat little body and into the heat of the store. Once inside, both women stand and gaze around in awe. Every square inch of the high ceiling is festooned with ribbon, taffeta and crêpe-paper frills, and all the counters are edged with tiny multicoloured flashing lights. A giant white teddy bear dressed as Santa waves a greeting and barks out a ‘Ho, ho, ho’. Bing Crosby singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ seeps over them, and Gladys smiles, despite herself. After all, this will be their first Christmas at Audubon Drive, and the first time she’s been able to do all her shopping at Goldsmith’s. She even has a charge account. Perhaps this will make amends for having to share the holidays with a Vegas showgirl.

Dottie seems at home in the store. She looks, Gladys reflects, like part of the display. To Gladys’s surprise, despite lighting up a cigarette at supper last night, Dottie Harmony – not her real name – has so far proved herself well mannered and cheerful in an almost homey way. She has even agreed to assist Gladys with the Christmas shopping.

Gladys has spent the last week compiling the list now clutched in her hand. She glances at the paper. Presents – Male is written on one side, and Presents – Female on the other. Beneath each heading is a list of items which have caught her attention in magazines or on TV. She does not know who these items will be for. Her son has told her to buy thirty gifts suitable for women, twenty-five for men. She should spend around $50 each on the first ten, $25 on the rest. He’s assured her that the important thing is not what goes to who, but that they buy enough, and that those gifts suit the kind of family they are now – they should be modern, luxurious, top of the range. Dottie can help, he said. She’ll know the quality stuff. He gave her a wink, and a glimpse of that knowing smile that’s never far from his lips these days. What a showgirl would know about quality Gladys wasn’t sure, but she’d resisted the temptation to ask.

If only she could get one of these girls to stay long enough for marriage! Then they could all live together and she’d be sure Elvis would always come home – if not for her, then for his wife and children. But the girls come and go like leaves blown along Audubon Drive. They have little substance or staying power. And her son, she has to admit, doesn’t do enough to hold on to them. He enjoys one for a few weeks, then it’s on to the next, and she must learn a new name and try her best to make the girl stay, to make her hers, as well as his.

Dottie picks her way through soft furnishings like a flamingo. Everything about her is flushed pink: her cheeks, her lips, her cleavage – exposed beneath her little wool jacket; even her white-blonde hair is dancing and pert, gleaming in the bright lights of the store. When she arrived at the house, Vernon looked at her as if she were the well he’d been walking for days to drink from.

Spotting a sign to Santa’s grotto, Dottie claps her hands together. ‘Ooh! I loved to visit Santa, when I was a little girl.’

‘You don’t need Santa now, honey. You have Elvis.’

Dottie examines Gladys’s face for a moment before letting out a high laugh. ‘You’re too much, Mrs Presley!’

Gladys touches Dottie’s shoulder. ‘This here jacket is just adorable. Did Elvis buy it for you?’

But Dottie is reaching for a cushion, and doesn’t seem to have heard. ‘Look at these, Mrs Presley. Wouldn’t they be perfect for the ladies’ list?’

The list does not say ‘ladies’. It says ‘female’, which is an entirely different thing.

‘How about perfume?’ says Gladys. ‘Come on, dear. Let’s go try some …’

She grabs Dottie’s arm and steers her through the aisles towards the cosmetics department. At each polished counter, another young girl looks up and registers the presence of the mother of Elvis Presley. Gladys smiles and nods at every one of them. To her satisfaction, they do not seem to recognise Dottie Harmony at all; in fact, most of the girls scowl at her.

Before they reach the perfume counter, Gladys is distracted by a display dedicated to the Crown Jewel electric shavers she’s seen advertised on TV. Beneath a sign saying Dare to bare more of you!, dozens of them rest on cerise silk purses. Gladys had been a little shocked at the idea of electric shavers for women, but the woman in the advertisement had seemed so calm and reassuring – and she’d worn the most sophisticated evening gown.

‘Dorothy, do you reckon one of these would be, you know, suitable?’

Dottie picks up a shaver and weighs it in her hand. It is pale pink and decorated with tiny crystals. Frowning slightly, she says, ‘Sure, Mrs Presley. It’s real pretty. Although I wouldn’t use one, personally.’

‘You wouldn’t?’

Dottie whispers in Gladys’s ear. ‘The electric ones don’t get close enough, if you know what I mean.’ Then she flips the thing back onto its silk nest and saunters towards the perfume.

Gladys instructs the salesgirl to wrap two shavers and have them sent to the Presley house. Then she takes a pen from her pocket and strikes through Crown Jewel.

When she catches up with Dottie, who is trying a lipstick, Gladys tries not to look at her own reflection, but the mirrors glare down from every counter. She knows the fans and the press are disappointed that Elvis Presley’s mother is not beautiful – there’s a trace of prettiness still there, maybe, but the overall impression, as she glances at her reflection in the mirror of the Elizabeth Arden counter, is of bulk and tiredness. Remembering her mother’s comments about the breadth of her shoulders, Gladys tries to ignore the sweat on her top lip and focus on the make-up girl, who is spraying perfume, and saying something about her son’s movie being just so exciting. Gladys grips the counter, and the girl chatters, and everything wobbles slightly beneath the lights.

‘Mrs Presley, are you all right?’ asks Dottie. ‘You don’t look so good.’

What she really needs is to take this dead animal from her back, sit down, and consume some alcohol. Once she makes this decision, Gladys snaps back into focus.

‘How about we take a load off, in the restaurant upstairs?’ she says.

‘We haven’t done much shopping.’

‘This nice girl here will wrap us up five bottles of scent, won’t you, dear? It’s for delivery to the Presley house.’

The girl is blushing. ‘I know, ma’am. Right away.’

‘Come on, Dorothy. Let’s take a little refreshment.’

In the elevator, it’s like she’s already had that drink. She watches the buttons illuminate and fade as they fly to the top floor, and feels so much lighter that she almost giggles.

It’s cooler and quieter in the restaurant. The potted palms are festooned with baubles, but the room is uncluttered compared with the rest of the store. A few ladies turn their heads as Gladys and Dottie cross the patterned carpet, and she is glad that the waiter offers them a table in the corner, away from the others.

It is so good to remove her heavy coat, sit on the padded chair and smooth her hot hands across the thick white tablecloth.

Dottie perches on her seat and looks around. ‘Everyone in this room knows who you are, Mrs Presley.’

Gladys shrugs. ‘They may know my name, but they know nothing at all about me.’

‘But isn’t it exciting to be recognised?’

‘Oh, sure.’ Back in East Tupelo, everybody knew Gladys’s name and most things about her and her family. And she knew them in return. It is a strange thing, to be recognised, and to have folks expect things of you, without knowing anything of them. Gladys suspects that if she starts to think about the strangeness of such things, she will need not four or five but six, or even seven, drinks a day. If she thinks about such things, she may have to stop coming to Goldsmith’s altogether.

‘Let me buy you a snack, Dorothy—’

‘Just coffee for me, Mrs Presley.’

‘Call me Gladys, honey.’

Dottie moves closer. ‘Don’t look now,’ she hisses, ‘but that woman over there is gawping at us!’

Gladys glances over her shoulder and gives the woman a small wave. ‘Without these folks, I would not be shopping here at all,’ she says. ‘Now. Let me buy you something to eat.’

Dottie lets out a sigh. ‘I guess I could use a doughnut.’

When Gladys asks the waiter for a club sandwich and a small beer, Dottie’s eyes dart up from her purse, but Gladys doesn’t care. She’s had only one this morning, sitting at the breakfast table with Vernon, who was looking out at the girls beyond the gate. With her son home and sleeping, at last, she’d told herself there was no need for the beer, but then Vernon rose from his seat and tapped on the window, and she’d pictured his face as he gave those girls a wave – increasingly, she sees something wolf-like in those pointed front teeth of his – and she’d gone to the refrigerator. Her husband squinted at her, coughed, but said nothing. If he’d made an effort and said something like, Gladys, do you really need that? then she might have put it back. But instead he’d turned to the window again. So she’d gulped the beer, and, later on, just before leaving for downtown, she’d taken a nip of vodka in her grapefruit juice, too.

‘Do you believe in Jesus, Dottie?’

The showgirl snaps her purse shut. ‘Pardon me, Mrs Presley?’

‘Because whatever the newspapers say about him, that’s real important to Elvis. He believes in the Bible.’

‘Oh, I know. He read to me from it last night … It was – real sweet.’

Gladys’s eyes follow the waiter as he sets down their food and Dottie’s coffee. There’s no beer, but there’s no cause to fret; she must focus on the girl.

‘My son always says, when the newspapermen ask him, that his mother and daddy brought him up to be a good Christian, and it’s a hundred per cent true.’

Dottie sips her coffee. Gladys takes a bite of her sandwich. Without the beer, it’s dry and tasteless.

‘Which church do you go to, Mrs Presley?’

‘We’re all First Assembly of God. But we don’t have time to get to church as often as we’d like. And if Elvis went, well! You can picture the scene. But I reckon it’s the praying that’s important, don’t you, Dorothy? I tell Elvis: son, it don’t matter if you’re at a record studio or on some stage or in Hollywood itself! You can still pray.’

‘That’s nice,’ says Dottie.

Gladys cannot get through her sandwich without a beer. She scans the room for the waiter. The other women are eating salads and drinking coffee from small glass cups. None of them have arms which press at the seams of their dresses. Suddenly she imagines all the food sliding off – coffees, Pepsis, floats, tuna-fish sandwiches – into the laps of these neat females.

When at last the beer arrives, Gladys clutches it hard, drinks, and refocuses.

‘What grades did you get in school, Dorothy?’

‘Oh, I didn’t do so well at school …’ Dottie rubs at the back of her neck, making her curls bounce.

Gladys must be careful now. This one isn’t as young as the others, and a Yankee. She may not take the questioning so well.

‘You was probably too busy helping your mother, like me. What does she think, Dorothy, about your career and all?’

Dottie flashes a big smile. ‘She’s mighty proud.’

‘Well, I guess she must be!’ says Gladys, taking another drink. ‘You want to settle down, though, don’t you, and have a family?’

Dottie fiddles with the clasp on her purse. ‘Eventually, I guess.’

‘Because her family is a woman’s greatest glory, ain’t it? Elvis needs somebody to take good care of him. And I understand some girls don’t wanna stay home—’

‘Right now I’m enjoying my career.’

‘Especially when their heads get turned by a lot of fancy stuff.’

The beer has settled her nerves, and she touches the showgirl on the arm. Her skin is as cool and smooth as the tablecloth, and feels almost too delicate to bear. ‘But I’m sure you ain’t like that, dear.’

Dottie withdraws her arm and settles back in her chair. ‘Actually, Mrs Presley, can I speak frankly?’

There’s a new directness in her voice which surprises Gladys.

Gladys motions to the waiter, pointing at her glass. She’ll have just one more.

‘I don’t want to disappoint you,’ Dottie continues, ‘but me and Elvis – I mean, we’re just having fun, you know?’

‘But Elvis really likes you.’

Dottie licks a finger, runs it around her plate, and pops it, sugar-coated, into her mouth. ‘Oh, I know he admires me, but it’s mainly a publicity thing! I mean, it looks good for him to be seen with a Vegas showgirl.’

‘It’s more than that, Dorothy. A mother can tell these things.’

Dottie raises her voice. ‘I really don’t think so, Mrs Presley!’

Several people nearby glance over. Dottie plants her elbows on the table and lowers her voice. ‘What I mean is, a girl has to keep her eyes open in this world, don’t you think? It’s awful nice to spend time with him, but I know the truth: he just isn’t ready to settle down.’

Gladys’s beer comes, and she takes a gulp before continuing. ‘I’m sorry, Dorothy, but you got it all wrong. Elvis tells me everything. We’ve always been real close. He mentioned his brother, Jesse, to you, I guess?’

‘He said something …’

‘Jesse was Elvis’s stillborn twin. Lord forgive me, but I often think that had his brother survived, I might have lost something precious, because the bond between me and Elvis would never have been so strong.’

Dottie blinks.

‘Anyhow!’ Gladys remembers to laugh. ‘He told me, he said, “Mama, Dottie’s a real special girl.”’

Dottie runs a finger around her plate again, but there’s no sugar left. ‘Well,’ she says softly. ‘That’s real nice, Mrs Presley, but …’

Gladys clutches at Dottie’s wrist, and the girl, surprised, draws back, but Gladys holds on. She leans closer, so Dottie can’t look away. ‘Can’t you at least try to make him happy for me?’

Dottie extricates her fingers from Gladys’s. ‘I don’t really see,’ she says, ‘how I can make him any happier than he already is.’

Gladys gives a bitter laugh. ‘You think he’s happy without a family?’

Dottie says, ‘I sure do, Mrs Presley. Anyway, Elvis has a family. He has you.’

With a weak hand, Gladys motions for the cheque.